Free 'ATL Museums At Home' Offers Friday Tours: GA Coronavirus

ATLANTA, GA — Through a new collaborative effort, some of Atlanta’s most popular museums and attractions will offer free weekly virtual tours and educational content for students, teachers and families. With attractions and nonessential businesses ordered to close due to the coronavirus pandemic, the group says they still want to uplift people during this time.

ATL Museums at Home is a culmination of 12 organizations who have come together to launch the initiative, which kicks off at 10 a.m. Friday. It includes ongoing social media and website posts of unique content, culminating each week with a special “Field Trip Friday” event.

Various organizations will post content on social channels that allow students, families, and more, the opportunity to learn and explore these locations. Weekly schedules with links to each attraction participating can be found online here.

The virtual trip will offer a variety of activities and experiences. Audiences can discover behind-the-scenes animal encounters, tours, hands-on activities, experiments, story times, spring blooms and more.

New CEO of The College Football Hall of Fame, Kimberly Beaudin, said that the group felt this was needed, especially with spring break approaching for students. She previously held the position of Senior Vice President of Marketing and Sales for the Hall of Fame before being promoted.

“We felt like it was really important because a lot of us are either parents or work with parents,” she told Patch. “We understand that there's still a need for what we provide. We are educational, we can be entertaining, and we can provide relief and a distraction.”

Beaudin declined to share exactly what viewers will see Friday, calling it a "surprise."

“We will definitely be giving folks a peek inside the museum and kind of a virtual tour,” she said. “We can't do the whole museum at once, but we could do a gallery. Like, ‘Here's one gallery and here's all the different things you can do.’”

As of now, there’s no end date for Field Trip Friday. Beaudin said it’ll run until the shelter-in-place is lifted, possibly even longer.

What the group is doing isn’t about any one particular individual, she said.

“It's about the fact that we were able to collectively come together,” she said. “That’s really the message. This is kind of anything that folks could want from an arts and entertainment, and museum and cultural place, all in one spot.”

Participating Atlanta attractions include:

Atlanta Botanical Garden
Atlanta History Center
Breman Museum
Children's Museum of Atlanta
College Football Hall of Fame
Fernbank Museum, 3D Theater and Forest
Georgia Aquarium
High Museum of Art
Michael C. Carlos Museum of Emory University
National Center for Civil and Human Rights
Zoo Atlanta